


A Dalliance With Words

by jesterlady



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Arthurian, Bromance, Canon Het Relationship, Crack, Crossover, Disney, F/M, Gen, Humor, Male Friendship, Once and Future King, One Shot, POV Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-02
Updated: 2013-02-02
Packaged: 2017-11-27 21:49:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/666864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesterlady/pseuds/jesterlady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the 21st century and Merlin's teaching Arthur and Gwen all about living in the future.  Such an education includes essentials like watching the Disney version of their story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Dalliance With Words

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin or the Sword in the Stone. The title is by Eugene Peterson.  
> A/N: Don't really know how this came about. Just pictured them watching the Sword in the Stone and it flew off from there.

To Arthur, living with Merlin in the future was a lot like living with Merlin in the past, only more annoying.

For one thing Merlin expected him to dress himself and was no help at all when Arthur got confused by all the different buttons and zippers. Arthur was not a fan of zippers. Merlin kept saying Arthur had to learn to take care of himself and be his own man and not get trapped in the traditions of the past. Arthur suspected it was simply a way of paying Arthur back for having been his servant in the first place.

Which was not Arthur's fault. It had been his father who'd decided on that, thank you very much.

This Merlin of the future liked to taunt Arthur with knowledge about modern things like television, the internet, electricity, cars, rubber plants. The list was endless and Arthur took to studying the encyclopedia simply so that one day Merlin would start waxing on about some obscure subject and Arthur would be able to converse so knowledgeably about it that Merlin would be utterly upstaged. He also had a lot of free time on his hands.

Another thing was that Merlin insisted on going around in an old man's body half the time and it was a very startling thing to come walking out of his room in the morning, pass by the kitchen, and see Merlin's beard bobbing about, scattering hair into everyone's coffee. And Merlin did insist on suddenly transforming in the middle of sentences, just to get a reaction, Arthur was sure of it.

But coffee, that was one thing Arthur could get behind. He was a big fan of coffee. It was like fighting a battle and winning every time. There weren't enough battles in the future. Arthur missed jousting. Renaissance fairs just didn't do it for him even if he won everything. Coffee helped when Merlin teased him about spending too much time in the past.

Guinevere was no help at all. She'd gotten used to the future much more quickly than Arthur. She liked to go shopping and could drive a car better than either Merlin or Arthur. She had no problem dressing herself (and Arthur was perfectly fine with how she did that, thanks very much to the inventor of jeans), and she knew more about the current system of government than Arthur could ever comprehend.

"Parliament…?" he would say and Merlin and Guinevere would smile sympathetically at the poor-stuck-in-the-past-monarch.

It was grievously unfair, but most of the time Arthur found he enjoyed himself, though he missed his horses and frequently insisted on making trips to random stables in the area and seeing if he could get Merlin a job as a stable boy or something.

Merlin had a job already. Which was really weird. Arthur wasn't quite sure what he did, but it involved a lot of dramatic makeup and a surprisingly large amount of fake fish. Arthur thought it better not to ask. It seemed Merlin got a lot of enjoyment out of using his magic for people and wasn't even bothered by not getting full credit for it. He said he was just happy he didn't have to keep saving Arthur's royal neck. Arthur's general response to such comments was to throw a pillow at him.

Thank goodness people still had pillows or Arthur didn't know what he would use to throw at Merlin. It seemed a bit harsh in these modern times of equality to throw goblets and boots like he used to, but throw something he must and so did.

The biggest shock about being in the twenty-first century was how famous he was. Merlin hadn't let him know for a long time, telling him that his ego had been big enough. (Arthur did throw a glass that time, but never did it again after Guinevere had given him that disapproving look he couldn't abide and made him clean it up.) But once Arthur had seen the vast array of books and films and television made about him, it had completely surprised him. 

And it was all so different. Everything was warped, distorted by time, and some of it made no sense whatsoever. The idea that he would have ever been Mordred's father by Morgana made him a little queasy actually. He liked to laugh at the stories where he was from common birth though. 

Mostly he laughed at Merlin's role in the stories because almost all of them featured the old man version of Merlin. One fancy dress party they went to Merlin actually dressed up in his old man body with a blue robe and pointy hat and Arthur laughed so hard he burst a seam in his own costume and then calmly chased Merlin around the living room after the other man called him fat. Guinevere had sat on the sofa watching them before Arthur could swear she winked at Merlin and before he knew it a stool had flown out in front of him and Arthur was sprawled on the floor.

"You're my wife!" he'd protested. "Whatever happened to being on my side?"

"Us common folk have to stick together," she'd said before helping him up and kissing him in such a manner that he'd quite forgotten about it by the end.

But then one day Merlin sat them both down in the living room and popped in a film, declaring it to be his favorite adaptation of the King Arthur legend.

"It's a kid's movie," Arthur said, studying the cover closely.

"It's amazing, Arthur," Merlin said. "Why, it has you as this skinny, little nobody. You call me sir all the time. You have to clean mountains of dishes. You nearly get eaten by a number of animals. And you think my magic is wonderful."

Arthur caught the slight hitch in Merlin's voice during his last remark and so didn't protest any further as they watched. Until his first time on screen appeared.

"I do not look like that. I never looked like that. Not even as a child."

"It's a cartoon, Arthur," Guinevere soothed. "They exaggerate things."

Merlin insisted on watching the whole movie in his old man body. Now, Arthur could get used to that except Old Man Merlin was incredibly grouchy and much less willing to let Arthur get away with anything. And he laughed whenever screen Arthur was clumsy and fell or got told off by his guardian.

Of course Arthur laughed whenever the screen Merlin got his beard caught in something, so there was that.

"What's with the owl?" he finally asked. "I mean, I never even saw you with a bird once."

"Think of it as a familiar," Merlin said. "And don't think that you knew everything about me, Arthur Pendragon. I've always had some kind of connection to the animal kingdom and I always will."

"Just so long as you're responsible for cleaning up after them," Arthur grumbled.

"Like you'd ever get off your lazy backside and do it," Merlin grumbled right back.

"You're missing it," Guinevere said and shushed them.

Arthur got a cold feeling in his stomach when the screen Arthur was turned into a squirrel and Merlin started cackling.

"Now don't be jealous, Gwen," Merlin said, pointing at the young female squirrel on the screen. "I think Arthur's got himself a bit of a girl problem."

"It's not my fault," Arthur said, glaring at the screen. A few minutes later he was almost rolling on the floor laughing. "I don't think you've a leg to stand on, Merlin. Take a look at what I've got and then check out the squirrel who wants you!"

Merlin mumbled under his breath then spoke up.

"I can make you into a squirrel for real, you know."

"I'd like to see you try," Arthur challenged, knowing full well Merlin couldn't yet this week.

Merlin was allowed to use magic on Arthur three times a week just like Arthur was allowed to make Merlin do something three times a week. Guinevere had set it up, a way to wean them off of destructive habits, she'd called it. Arthur personally thought she just liked a bit of peace and quiet every now and then.

"Why waste it?" Merlin said after a minute or two of some inner struggle and Arthur smiled quietly to himself in triumph.

Arthur watched for a bit until they got to the wizard duel and then he laughed his head off again.

"She's not really like that," Merlin huffed. "She's quite beautiful, but, yes, only skin deep. And our duel was nothing like that. There were no animals involved."

"I'm glad you didn't spend all your time waiting for us giving germs to old hags, Merlin," Arthur said dryly. "That would have made me more worried about you than I normally am."

"Sentimental old fool," Merlin said.

"Old?" Arthur said pointedly, looking Merlin up and down.

"But still more intelligent than you."

"What I wouldn't give for a decent set of stocks."

"Or a decent destiny," Merlin said.

"Will you two stop?" Guinevere asked. "Trying to watch the film here. Which I'm not in, by the way."

"Don't like how they portray you most of the time," Merlin simply said gruffly. "Never true."

There was a short silence before Guinevere hugged him and Old Merlin grinned at her. Arthur rolled his eyes and pulled Guinevere into his lap.

"Nice of you to leave me like that," he told Merlin after the screen Merlin went off to Bermuda. "Some protector you are."

"I left you the owl," Merlin said, his younger self melting into view, and his resident cheeky grin appearing.

"Stop doing that!" Arthur said, jumping.

"Sorry," Merlin said, not sounding sorry at all.

In the end, screen Arthur pulled the sword from the stone and was made king and everything was all right in the world.

"Bloody stupid film," Arthur said. 

He'd taken to modern swearing quite well, if he did say so himself.

"I liked it," Guinevere said.

"Right, well, Arthur, your turn to clean tomorrow," Merlin said, heading into his room. "I've got an early show. Night."

"How is it that he never changed?" Arthur asked musingly.

"All legends have some beginning," Guinevere said, taking him by the hand and leading him into their room. "His began with you; I don't think he could really ever stop until you came back."

"Well, you're still the same," he said.

"As are you," she told him. "What does that tell you?"

"That we'll always be like this. You and me. Maybe Merlin."

She smiled at him and turned around so he could help her off with her dress. Fine, so maybe zippers weren't that bad after all. Coming off, that is. He had very definite ideas about what to do once the dress was off, but first he had a rather pressing modern question.

"Is it really my turn to clean tomorrow?"


End file.
